Thanks, Mom! It's November ...

The cows used to have all of the calves in the summer, which made for some long and hard days ... like when 18 calves would be born in a day.

Kris thought that this year we would space them out a little bit more, so as a result ... we're still feeding little calves after our summer help went back to college!

My mom, the best volunteer in the land, offered to do the morning calf chores, and she's been great!  Kris and I don't know what we would do - or the calves would do - without her.





While that's been happening, we've had a lot of promotion, too.  One day the United Dairy Industry of Michigan hosted their program advisor training at the Huntington Club at Michigan State.  This is my friend Karly who was a part of it - (she looks just like a college student even though she is married and has a baby!)



I went to the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance annual meeting in Kansas City to continue our mission to positively promote agriculture ...



And as a member of Team Chocolate Milk, ran a 5K in my hometown with my kids and friends.  Cole won his age group - first time! (Yes, he has been heavily influenced by watching Olympic winners bite their medals.)



The five of us hit the national dairy meeting in California that Kris went to because he's a board member at our co-op ...



and today was our Michigan Milk Producers Association Leaders' Conference.



So you can see why my mom - and our employees that we actually pay - are such a huge part of all of this!  Thank you to all of them for taking care of things while we're not here.

Though it looks like we've been gone in November, we're actually here more than we're gone.  I just hit the highlights with these pictures.  The normal schedule for Kris is farm, farm, farm, farm, farm, farm, Michigan State football game ... but we just had the last home game!

The meeting was optimistic today, but I hope that the rest of 2017 and 2018 ... and beyond is only positive for farming!  Happy Thanksgiving - we all have a lot to be thankful for. At the very least, I'm already really looking forward to stuffing myself at dinner ... and my mom is, of course, making most of it.  Calves, kids, grandchildren ... she feeds all of us!

Want to know more about the farm?  Like the page on Facebook, on Twitter @carlashelley, or sign up to get the blog by email - the form is on the right side of the page.